The Man With the Fine Bay Mare
by DCWash
Summary: There’s dissention in the camp, a woman is at the root of it all, and a heart gets broken. By this point it’s probably been a couple of years since Marian got stabbed…and lived! Will’s back in Sherwood with the others but Djaq stayed behind. For now?
1. Chapter 1

Title: The Man with the Fine Bay Mare – Part 1 of 3

Author: dcwash

Characters: The Whole Gang, minus Djaq and plus an original character

Disclaimer: All characters (except original ones) belong to BBC/Tiger Aspect

Rating: I'm working on the assumption that a bunch of grown men, former soldiers and thieves living as outlaws in the forest, don't limit themselves to pre-watershed language. And there are some references to sex that the itty-bitty's probably won't get. But again, nothing you can't hear on mainstream TV channels in the hours designated for teens and adults. I don't know how that translates to the lettering and numbering system(s).

Spoilers: The vaguest of vague spoilers for S2/E12-13 and for S1/E9.

Length: 3994 of 11070

Summary: Hoo, boy.

If you've been reading the "Dear Carter" series, this explains why "Allan [was] white of face, Much red of face, and Will looking as if he wished he had stayed in Acre" when Marian dropped by the camp in the last installment. I started writing the answer to that question and it turned into a magnum opus far beyond what any mortal should be asked to read in one sitting. So I've broken it up into three parts that'll I'll be posting right after each other. "Mistress" kind of acts as a prequel, setting the stage for what comes in this story. That said, I think "Dear Carter," "Mistress," and "The Man with the Fine Bay Mare" all work well independently and don't have to be read together or in any particular order.

Oh, the plot summary! Suffice it to say there's dissention in the camp, a woman is at the root of it all, and a heart gets broken. By this point it's probably been a couple of years since Marian got stabbed…and lived! Will's back in Sherwood with the others but Djaq stayed behind. (For now? Hmmm…..)

**xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx**

Even if you're leading an uprising against the established political order and committing unrepentant larceny in an effort to forcibly redistribute the nation's wealth, the housekeeping still needs to be done. Somebody needs to sweep out the hut and delouse the bedding. Somebody needs to fetch the water and wood. Somebody needs to make sure the horses have something to eat besides their daily snack of poison oak. And somebody needs to sort out the recent haul and properly put away it away in the second cave to the right, stuffed in Much's old sock, behind the reddish rock and underneath the barrel of bulk goods.

Robin reserved that last job for himself. It wasn't that he didn't trust the other lads, it's just that he saw himself as less vulnerable to temptation. So each morning he went to the cave and sized up what they had gotten the day and night before, giving it all a cursory appraisal and putting the coins in the sock, the silver chalices and great gold brooches in the barrel. But this morning, something felt…off. Was the sock a tad bit light? And weren't the things in the barrel arranged a little differently the last time he opened it?

It could mean anything. He could be wrong. After all, it wasn't like the light was any good once you got that far into the cave. And it wasn't like he could really gauge the weight of the sock by heft alone. Hadn't he caused enough trouble before when he was convinced—_convinced!_—that the sock was shrinking, only to be proved in error? Accounting and inventory had never been his strengths. They had never really been necessary—money was given away almost as soon as they got it, hot goods were sold as soon as they cooled down.

Well, whatever was missing—_if_ anything was missing—it wasn't a lot. The big and flashy silver pieces were still there. There was still plenty of jingle left in the sock. So, Robin reasoned, let's use this as a starting point. Really lay out and examine and count what we have on hand and make a note of it, then check again later. And keep quiet in the mean time.

**xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx**

Another day, another set of chores, and another morning for Robin to go into the cave. Putting the sack of new booty aside, he spread his cloak on the ground and pulled over the barrel and Much's lumpy sock. He sorted the money into symmetrical piles of silver pennies, half-pennies, and farthings, and placed goods from the barrel onto the cloak, one at a time. A handful of rings with pretty but not particularly precious stones. A huge silver ewer and basin the gang had already had forever because they were so hard to fence, individually or together. An archdeacon's gold pectoral cross that Robin felt guilty about. A set of rather nice crystal unidentifiable thingies. And….where was the cup? There had been a bronze cup in here. He particularly remembered it because it was so new and shiny and because why in the world would somebody be traveling through Sherwood Forest with a single, solitary, new, shiny, bronze cup? ("_A christening present, maybe?_") It was probably the least valuable but most functional thing in the barrel. It seemed to Robin that if you were going to go to the trouble of stealing from hardened criminals like themselves, you might as well take something that would make it more worth your while. Maybe some kids found the cave and were too scared to take anything bigger. Maybe in torchlight the bronze looked like a richer metal.

Robin pondered the loss, and what to do about it, as he counted the stacked coins. The total came to eight shillings, six pence and a farthing, in the form of seven stacks of ten intact pennies, six like stacks of pennies cut in half plus another four, and a fourteen of the tiny wedge-shaped farthings. Which didn't seem right. But not horribly wrong, either. Robin checked and didn't see a hole in the sock, but farthings were pointy little buggers and he supposed some could have worked their way out. At any rate, he used one of the farthings to scratch the total on a hidden corner of the red rock to use for later reference.

**xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx**

This time Robin was almost looking forward to inventorying the cache. There was a mystery to solve! Silver ewer and basin? Check. Rings? Check. Crystal doo-hickeys? All accounted for. Gold pectoral cross? Still gold and still making Robin feel guilty.

On to the money. 67 silver penny coins this time, the same 14 farthings…and an extra half penny.

_The thief had made CHANGE?_

**xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx**

As far as he could tell, nobody but the gang itself and Marian, its honorary member, knew where the camps were, and he wasn't sure if even Marian knew the exact location of the storage caves. If kids had stumbled across this one, he was sure they would have left more of a mess behind. And if it was serious thieves, he was sure they would have left nothing behind, not even the crystal doohickeys. Which left…the gang itself?

Aha.

"Will," Robin said that evening, "Have you seen Allan?"

"Um, he's gone to Brockford." If Will had been looking up instead of at whatever he was whittling, Robin might have noticed he a little embarrassment on his face.

"Okay," Robin said.

Which, of course, proved nothing. In fact, the more he thought about it, the more Robin kind of leaned against Allan as the thief, despite past history. Allan wasn't the most subtle of crooks, and Robin thought if he was going to steal, he would steal big. Besides, he knew Allan was already skimming a bit off the top of the gambling proceeds he was winning for their cause and so wasn't desperate for pocket money, and pocket money was about all this amounted to. If he had to guess, Robin would say John was the most likely to be too embarrassed to ask for the money up front but too honorable to really rip them off.

A stakeout seemed in order. So, the next night, after everybody had turned in, Robin snuck over to the bushes near the cave to watch for breakers-and-enterers. (A trickier proposition than one might think when it's dark, there are bodies sprawled all around, and the forest floor is covered in dry leaves.)

Nothing happened until moonrise, and then it wasn't the least what Robin expected. There was a rustle, all right. Then there was a murmur, a little low whispered voice. But Robin couldn't see anything going on by the mouth of the cave. In fact, it sounded more like it was coming from the lean-to where they kept the horses. Robin crept in that direction and saw a cloaked someone; he assumed it was Allan since he was saddling Allan's horse. This wasn't good—there was no virtuous reason for Allan to sneak off like that. There was only one thing to do: as soon as Allan cleared out, Robin saddled his own horse and went to continue his spying in the cover of the trees by the main road, betting that, whichever direction Allan went, it wouldn't be cross-country. Something jogged Robin's brain and made him think he would probably be towards Brockford.

**xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx**

Robin was right. It _was_ Brockford Allan went to. He had no idea what in particular Allan wanted to do there, but a brush-covered hill afforded a good view of virtually the entire village. Even if he were too far away to distinguish Allan's face, Robin reasoned that there wouldn't be two people riding fine bay coursers into town in the dead of night.

And, like clockwork, there was the horse, ambling down the road. The rider got off in front of one of the meaner cottages, on the edge of the settlement and (fortunately for Robin) close to Robin's hill. It was Allan all right. He opened the gate like he owned the place and led the horse into the shadows behind the house, then tapped on the door. A woman opened it slightly, then further when she recognized the man before her. She gave him a warm embrace, he gave her what looked to be a small jar, she gave him a kiss, and he followed up with a goose to the bum as she led him inside.

_Well, now!_ Robin thought. _Not quite what I expected. But better than I was afraid._ He couldn't help but smile as he got up to leave. No, Allan hadn't left camp for a "virtuous" reason. But there seemed to such genuine joy in their greeting, and there hadn't been enough of that going around lately. _Ah, who am I to stand in the path of true love?_ Robin thought. _The thieving's got to stop, though._

**xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx**

Allan was back in camp the next morning, sleeping as if he had never left. Ironically, what with one thing and another, they decided to do an early food drop in Brockton rather than the originally scheduled Featherston. Robin made a point of chatting with residents when they did drops in newer places like this, not just leaving the food and running, so that he could get a better feel for people's concerns. As he did so, he kept an eye on Allan, wondering if he could pick out the woman in question, _just out of curiosity_, he said to himself. They were quite subtle, so much so that Robin didn't think he would have identified her it if he hadn't known what to look for, but he thought it was the dark-haired lass who carried herself with a bit of a flounce and had a somewhat more rounded figure than most of the other women—there was a hint of smirk when she took a bag of flour from Allan, and Allan acted so indifferent he could only be trying to cover something up.

"Well, fancy _her_ coming out for this! A girl like that!" said the woman Robin was helping, nodding towards what he now considered "Allan's woman" with obvious disapproval.

Robin assumed that any lass with such a figure and who so prominently displayed a copper bracelet in a poor village in the middle of a working day would be considered A Girl Like That by the village matrons, whether she really was "like that" or not.

"Oh, come on, Margery," Robin protested. "Everybody has a right to eat."

"Sure they do," Margery said. "But they don't have a right to more than they need. And that's what she's getting from your man there. She don't need your charity, Robin. She's being taken care of."

Robin was a little puzzled. Allan's woman was walking away with no more than her allotted share. And he would have noticed earlier if Allan had been sneaking out with the amount of supplies Margery was implying.

Margery gave Robin what he had learned to recognize as the standard men-are-such-idiots look. "The Sheriff's man, Gilbert. He's some muckety-muck in the castle. He looks after her. (And in return for what I'm sure I don't want to know.) She tries to keep it quiet but everybody knows. He comes around right regular. Why else do you think she goes looks all well-fed while the rest of us are so scrawny?"

Robin didn't like what he was hearing. He must have still looked skeptical because Margery spelled out, as if she was speaking to a slow child: "Oh, it's true alright! He's asked for her. By name. If not she's sitting in her cottage when he comes to town, he says, 'Where's Constance? I need to see her.' Oh, come on, Robin! Don't look so shocked! Every village has one." She shook her head at the retreating Constance. "Oh, well. More power to her, I suppose. At least _someone's_ getting some good out of that lot."

Robin had tried not to show it when he froze up inside, but Margery's words meant more than she knew. She hadn't mentioned Allan as Constance's keeper, but it was Allan who came sneaking to her house at night. At best, Allan was being used by a woman he was obviously fond of. At worst…well, Allan had passed information to the Sheriff's men before; was Robin really positive he wasn't doing it again, using Constance as a conduit?

The question of what to do nagged at Robin all the way home. Should he call Allan out? Put him on trial with the rest of the gang acting as a jury? Hadn't it been hard enough for the group to get over the bitterness his earlier betrayal had caused? They had healed, but barely, and it had taken months of constant good deeds on Allan's part. Even now it could be they were all putting a brave face on things; who knew how much damage Allan had done to them individually? And what if Robin was wrong? What if Allan was simply your everyday cuckold? It would be painful enough for him just to learn that much, but to find it out on top of being accused of treason by the people he loved? One thing Robin knew by now was that the gang needed Allan, partly for his outlaw skills but also because they worked best as a team with his personality as part of the chemical mix. If Allan was acting as a spy, he would be out of the gang…if he was lucky. But even if he wasn't, would the sheer humiliation of it all make him leave the gang anyway?

The rest of the men were having too good a time teasing each other all the way home to notice how quiet Robin was. They kept at it once they were back, even as they to and fro unsaddling horses and putting things away. Poor Will seemed to bear the brunt of it.

"She smiled at you, Will," said Much.

"That's because our Will has such a sweet look about him," said Allan with a wink.

"She smiled at everybody!" said Will.

"She's a very friendly girl," said John.

"I hear she has a regular caller," said Much. "Somebody who shows up on a fine bay mare at the oddest hours." He said it in a sing-song voice, looking sideways at Allan.

"Lots of people have bay mares," said Allan. "It could be anyone." Robin thought he was a little twinkle in his eye, as if he was enjoying this game with Much.

"Oh, but what made him think of it was seeing our horses today. Old Walter swears one of them was a dead match for the one he's seen at Constance's house," said Much.

"It must be Gilbert's, over at the castle," said John. "I was meaning to ask you, Robin: Do we need to do anything about that?"

This was turning down a road Robin didn't like, but he didn't see any way to stop it.

"About what?" Allan asked.

"Her being Gilbert's woman. It doesn't seem right that we're running to Brockton all the time and there's somebody there helping out the Sheriff's men at the same time," explained John.

"She's not Gilbert's woman," said Allan. The twinkle was gone.

"Yeah. Gilbert doesn't ride a bay mare, does he? Doesn't he ride an old black palfrey?" Much was puzzled. He looked full on at Allan—no more of this teasing stuff. "But…"

"I don't know what Gilbert rides," John said. "All I know is he shows up more middays than not, spends a good while at Constance's house, and leaves. Both Simon and Beatrice told me. And what else I want to know is if she's giving him anything besides the obvious. Like information. About us. And what we're up to."

"If he's coming at midday, then he wouldn't come around at midnight as well," Much said. And he said it to Allan, not John.

"She's not Gilbert's woman," Allan answered back, softly but with intensity. "I don't care what Simon and Beatrice say."

"And Margery."

They turned to look at Robin, who had just inserted himself into the conversation. "But if she's also being visited by this stranger on a bay mare then maybe she's just a common whore and nothing to worry about. C'mon. Don't we have better things to do than stand around gossiping about women?" It was a dangerous tactic but the only one he could think of to defuse the situation. "Will, get…."

"She's not a whore, neither!" Allan blurted out. He had a grim but defiant look on his face as he glared from man to man.

"How do you know so much about this woman, Allan?" John asked, with narrowed eyes.

"Oh, come on, John! Isn't it obvious? It's his mare! Allan's our mystery man!" Much shouted the words, dripping with sarcasm.

"I think we've been down this road before," John said, as he connected the dots.

"_What?_" said Will.

"Yeah, just what are you getting at, John?" Allan said, obviously angry.

"He's not getting at anything. John, if Allan wanted to pass on secrets to the castle, I think he'd find an easier way than riding to Brockton in the middle of the night," said Robin.

"_Secrets?_" Allan turned on John. "Is that what you think? You and Much? You two never have trusted me, not from the first day…."

"It's not like we don't have good reason…." said Much.

"…there's a history there, after all…" said John. He and Much were literally on one side of the camp, Will and Allan on the other, with Robin in between.

"…Jesus Christ, what does he have to do to prove himself to you wankers?"

"_ENOUGH!_"

Robin's shout silenced the bunch of them.

"You followed me last night, didn't you? How else would you know about rides in the middle of the night?" Allan said, bitterly. He felt besieged, surrounded by wolves and unable to defend himself. "What put you on to me?"

"Well, some of the loot was missing…."

"So of course you thought of good old Allan…"

"…so I sat up to see who might be taking it."

"Wait, you mean he's stealing from us _and_ selling us down the river?" Much said. "That takes the cake!"

"_I haven't sold anybody down the river!_" Will almost thought Allan was going to cry. Or faint, judging by how pale he had gone. He was bent double, holding onto his knees and with his head bowed, like he was in physical pain.

"Whatever the truth is, I haven't seen any serious damage so far. But regardless, this…_triangle_…with you and Constance and Gilbert has to stop. So, for now, let's just step back and take a deep breath and figure out how we got here."

Allan closed his eyes and nodded. Much and John looked suspicious but at least were quiet.

"How long has this thing with you and Constance been going on?"

"Since we got back. From the Holy Land. This time. I knew her before. Back when I worked for Gisbourne. We had a…thing. For most of the year." All of Allan's usual glibness seemed drained out of him.

"And Gilbert?"

Allan sighed. "I knew she was seeing somebody when I came back. I assumed it was somebody with money, knowing her. But she didn't tell me who. And when she took me back…she told me she had ended it with him." He repeated, almost to himself. "She told me it was over."

"What did you tell her about us?" John asked.

"I didn't tell her anything!" Allan looked at Robin, pleading with his eyes for them to believe him.

"Think, Allan. Even by accident. What might she know about us? What might you have let slip out?" Robin didn't think Allan was any different from any other man when it came to talking himself up to impress a woman.

Allan thought. And as he did so, he began to look a little less defeated, a little more defiant. He shook his head, slowly. "She knows I'm back with you. She knows we've moved to this end of the forest. But everybody knows that, even the Sheriff and Gisbourne—it's hardly a secret. Look, half the reason I went to see her was to forget about…all this…"—he made a sweeping gesture with his arm, encompassing the camp and everyone in it "…for a little while. The last thing I wanted to do was talk about you lot." That caused Much to issue a derisive snort. Which in turn caused Allan to glare and stiffen.

"Look, mate! I've about had enough of you!" Allan said.

"You've had enough of _me?_ Maybe I've had enough of you being a member of this gang! You sneak out at night and we're supposed to trust you; you're particular friends with a particular friend of the Sheriff's, you _steal_ from us so you can lift up some doxy's _skirt_...."

"Oh, so _that's_ what this is all about!? _That's_ what's making you so crazy!"

"What do you mean? Of course it's not…."

"You're not pissed off because you think I've 'betrayed' you again. You're pissed off because I'm getting laid and you're _not!_"

There was enough self-evident truth in Allan's statement that even Much didn't have an immediate answer. But Allan was on a roll. He wasn't as loud as Much, but he spat out his words with real venom.

"Come to think of it, you're the only man jack of us who _hasn't_ had a woman the whole time we've been in the forest! I wonder why that is, Much? Maybe you don't _like_ women? Or maybe they don't like _you_? Could it be because you don't have what it takes to satisfy a…."

That was what it took for Much to finally lose control. He screamed and leapt at Allan, eyes and veins bulging, but was restrained—with some difficulty—by John. Will did the same with Allan, holding him from behind even though he hadn't made a move forward. He was tense and coiled and already had his hand on the hilt of his knife, though, and the icy white fury on his face actually frightened Will a little bit—this was the ferocious street fighter that had to be in there somewhere for Allan to have survived so long but that Will had never actually seen in action.

And, of course, that was the moment Marian chose to make an appearance.

**xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx**

Marian was rather put out at being hustled away almost as soon as she arrived. She had brought a packhorse laden with cheeses made at the abbey for the gang to dole out, and a request from the abbess for Robin to help escort a new, rich postulant through the forest. St. Martha's was hardly around the corner, and she thought she at least deserved a bit of refreshment from her journey at the camp. But something was obviously amiss with the men, though no one volunteered what. She had heard the shouts well before she got to camp and now suspected from everyone's embarrassed demeanor that they had been fighting over a woman but didn't want to offend what they still saw as her delicate sensibilities by telling her so. But Robin needed to handle it immediately, and handle it without her in the way, so she got back on her horse and left as soon as she and he had stashed the cheeses away.

"And Marian," Robin said, "If Allan comes around…he might could do with a listening ear." Robin was kind of awkward about it, which didn't surprise Marian; what surprised her was that he broached the subject of the friendship between her and Allan at all, given how uncomfortable it made him. As she left, she saw Allan stalk off into the forest, apparently because of a word from Robin.


	2. Chapter 2

Title: The Man with the Fine Bay Mare – Part 2 of 3

Author: dcwash

Characters: The Whole Gang, minus Djaq and plus an original character

Disclaimer: All characters (except original ones) belong to BBC/Tiger Aspect

Rating: I'm working on the assumption that a bunch of grown men, former soldiers and thieves living as outlaws in the forest, don't limit themselves to pre-watershed language. And there are some references to sex that the itty-bitty's probably won't get. But again, nothing you can't hear on mainstream TV channels in the hours designated for teens and adults. I don't know how that translates to the lettering and numbering system(s).

Spoilers: The vaguest of vague spoilers for S2/E12-13 and for S1/E9.

Length: 3156 of 11070

Summary: Hoo, boy.

If you've been reading the "Dear Carter" series, this explains why "Allan [was] _white_ of face, Much _red_ of face, and Will looking as if he wished he had stayed in Acre" when Marian dropped by the camp in the last installment. I started writing the answer to that question and it turned into a magnum opus far beyond what any mortal should be asked to read in one sitting. So I've broken it up into three parts that'll I'll be posting right after each other. "Mistress" kind of acts as a prequel, setting the stage for what comes in this story. That said, I think "Dear Carter," "Mistress," and "The Man with the Fine Bay Mare" all work well independently and don't have to be read together or in any particular order.

Oh, the plot summary! Suffice it to say there's dissention in the camp, a woman is at the root of it all, and a heart gets broken. By this point it's probably been a couple of years since Marian got stabbed…and lived! Will's back in Sherwood with the others but Djaq stayed behind. (For now? Hmmm…..)

**xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx**

Marian was rather put out at being hustled away almost as soon as she arrived. She had brought a packhorse laden with cheeses made at the abbey for the gang to dole out, and a request from the abbess for Robin to help escort a new, rich postulant through the forest. St. Martha's was hardly around the corner, and she thought she at least deserved a bit of refreshment from her journey at the camp. But something was obviously amiss with the men, though no one volunteered what. She had heard the shouts well before she got to camp and now suspected from everyone's embarrassed demeanor that they had been fighting over a woman but didn't want to offend what they still saw as her delicate sensibilities by telling her so. But Robin needed to handle it immediately, and handle it without her in the way, so she got back on her horse and left as soon as she and he had stashed the cheeses away.

"And Marian," Robin said, "If Allan comes around…he might could do with a listening ear." Robin was kind of awkward about it, which didn't surprise Marian; what surprised her was that he broached the subject of the friendship between her and Allan at all, given how uncomfortable it made him. As she left, she saw Allan stalk off into the forest, apparently because of a word from Robin.

**xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx**

Everyone seemed spent by the last outburst, including—or especially—Much.

"So now what do we do?" Robin asked as everybody continued looking at their feet.

Nobody said anything. They just dug holes in the dirt with their toes.

"John? Much?"

Much said, "Even if we believe him about not selling secrets—and I'm still not sure that we should…." He sighed. This wasn't easy for him, despite the anger that had overflowed just a few minutes before. "…he wasn't upfront about any of it. He didn't even tell us he had a girl on the side. Isn't that the kind of thing he normally would brag about? But he didn't. He must have had some suspicions about her. If he wasn't passing on information, then he must have been…_blind_…not to, or stupid. If he stays in the gang, I'll always be wondering what he's _really_ up to. And if I'm not wondering about that, I'll be wondering what he's being careless with. Either way…I don't think I can trust him. At all. With anything." He sighed again. "He's right. Maybe I never really did." Much sounded like he was saddened to realize it.

John nodded. "And then there's the stealing on top of that. How many more chances to we give him?"

Robin hoped he looked neutral. He had his own feelings but knew everybody needed to have their say and didn't want to influence them. But he had noticed something new about Allan when he got in trouble this time: he was defiant, not blaming anybody else, not making excuses, not lying about his association with Constance. And usually when he lied, especially to cover something up that he had done himself, he was smiling and chipper and slick with words, as if he truly believed that the person oozing the most charm was the one who was the most honest. There was nothing smooth about his performance this afternoon. Even though he hadn't directly addressed John and Much's accusations, that convinced Robin more than anything that Allan hadn't betrayed them…at least not willingly.

Which wasn't the same as saying Allan hadn't been used, that Vasey hadn't found a weakness and exploited it. It was a classic honey trap: get a girl to flatter a man, make him feel big and special, loosen his tongue with a little sex and alcohol, and then pass what he says on up the line. It was the same thing Vasey had tried on Much with Eve. The funny thing was, simple Much had been too smart for it; Robin couldn't swear as much about the normally cunning Allan.

"But he saved our lives!" It was Will's turn. Everybody looked at him. "He came back to Nettleston! He didn't have to, but he did!"

"Yeah, after Robin shot him down from the gallows in the first place!" said Much. Which started off another cacophony, this one about who had saved whose lives when.

"Alright! If we start going down that road there's no end to it. We all owe our lives to each other, Allan included. Let's call it even and drop it," said Robin.

"That wasn't what I meant anyway," Will said. "What I meant was, he didn't have to come back. He could have gone off on his merry way. But he didn't."

It looked to Will like they still weren't getting his point.

"Look. All of us here, right now, we're basically fighting because the Sheriff and Gisbourne took stuff—big stuff, important stuff—from us, and we want it back. I mean, that's really what it comes down to, isn't it? And that this is our home, and these are our people, and we have to look after our own. But nobody took anything from Allan. If anything, he gave things up to help us. He had everything he needed when he was with Gisbourne, and a lot that he just wanted, and he _gave it up_ to come back to _us_. A good roof, nice clothes, comfort, respect—all that's important to Allan. And he _gave it all up!_ And not only that, but after Nettleston? He could have gotten us out of the barn and ridden off on his own and nobody would think the worse of him, but he didn't. He went with us. And he stayed with us. He could have stayed in the Holy Land and…I dunno…made a killing selling fake relics in Jerusalem, or stayed where he comes from in the south when we got back to England, or just about anything else. But he didn't. He stayed with us, and the whole time he's been helping feed all the folks around here, who _aren't_ his people and who he _doesn't_ have to look after. And now you want him out of the gang again! Because he fell in love!"

Will spoke with passion but not with anger. Robin almost smiled—it must have been the most words he had ever heard Will string together at one time. And they seemed to leave John and Much troubled. That was the thing about the both of them: Robin had no doubt that they were quite serious about their doubts about Allan, that, despite Allan's last spiteful words to Much, it wasn't personal; there was no malice in voicing their suspicions to Robin. Which meant they were open to arguments and evidence and to reason.

"Maybe if we knew what he stole," John said. He seemed hung up on that. He might could forgive a lover's foolishness, but stealing from them, which was the same as stealing from the poor and hungry….

"As far as I can tell, we're down two and a half pence and a bronze cup we probably shouldn't have taken in the first place."

John looked stunned.

Robin clapped Will on the shoulder. "I think I'm with Will on this one," he said.

**xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx**

She came in from the garden and there he was. Again. It scared the bejeezus out of her. Again. He used to sneak in like that all the time, as much to tease her as anything else; she thought she had broken him of the habit.

But she smiled and made light of it, because that's what you do.

"Ah, look at you! First last night, then the delivery this morning, and now you're back again! I count that as three visits in one day! What, can't get enough of me all of a sudden?" She put her hands on his chest and gave him a little kiss, but he didn't respond. "Did you see? I wore that copper bracelet you gave me when you first came back. I thought you'd like that." Another little kiss, and, again, no response. She stepped back and cocked her head to look at him; all she saw was the merest hint of a cold, cold smile. It was…worrisome.

"And here you are in broad daylight, like you don't care _who_ knows. Mmmmph!"

He had lunged at her so suddenly and kissed her so hard and deep she almost choked. She broke away and put her hand to her mouth, angry and a little scared. "Here! What was that all about, then?"

"I wanted to see if I could still taste him on you."

"_Who?_"

"Gilbert, the Sheriff's man. My replacement."

Constance recovered quickly.

"Oh, people have been talking, have they? A bunch of old biddies who don't have anything better to do than gossip about me! They think that just because I live alone, and that the boys have always liked me, that I must be some kind of harlot! They're jealous, that's what it is! Jealous! That Albreda, she's the worst draggle-tail amongst them, always acting so pious and prim in public, like butter wouldn't melt in her mouth, but you ought to hear her caterwauling at her husband the sun goes down and the door's closed! But if you want _real_ jealously, you don't have to look any further than Christiana! She thinks that just because her husband lost what little courage he may used to have, _nobody_ should have a leg over! And the rest of this town…they've always looked down their noses at us, even when my mother was still alive. That Walter's been pestering me since I was a girl and he still ain't stopped, so he gets mad and says anything and everything he can to run me down. I think he thinks that if he does that enough I'll leave town and he'll get my house…."

Constance was working herself up into a lather of righteous indignation. Perhaps she could tell it rang a little hollow with Allan, so she shifted tack, turning her ginned-up fury on him.

"And you've been listening! You take their word over mine! You don't trust me! Me! I'm the one who took you back after you threw away all the good Sir Guy did for you! You left him and ran off to live in the woods and play Lord Bountiful with other people's things and I took you back anyway! I didn't have to do that, you know. I could have cast you right back where I found you, all raggedy, bringing in these trinkets like they were the crown jewels. But no! I took you back! And this is the thanks I get!"

Allan sat stoically through it all, though perhaps his smile thawed the tiniest of bits. He noticed that, despite all her verbiage, she hadn't actually denied anything. It was all dissembling and diversion. _That's why we've always gotten on so well_, he thought. _Because we're so much alike_.

But he had to play the game out.

"It's funny you should mention 'broad daylight.' Because, if I rightly recall, that was your idea—that I shouldn't come around in the daytime. It was all right with you before. In fact, you kind of wanted people to know you were my…let's say you were 'under my protection.' The protection of a big man at the castle. But you changed your mind pretty soon after I got back, didn't you?" He shrugged. "Hey, you were right—it was safer, under the circumstances. I'm an outlaw again. No need to flaunt myself about, you said. It'd be risky for the both of us. 'Discretion's the better part of valor,' you said.

But Gilbert doesn't need to be discreet, does he? 'Cause he's not an outlaw. And he is a big man at the castle. So he can just swan up the street in broad daylight and leave his horse out front for the whole world to see, can't he? What? You really thought nobody'd notice? And that nobody would talk? You mean that wasn't the point, Constance? That they should talk about how you'd come back up in the world again?"

She shrugged ruefully, and sighed, and gave Allan a sheepish smile. "Alright. You found me out. But what can I say? A girl's got to eat! And a girl likes pretty things. So what am I supposed to do?"

"_Damn it, woman! You told me it was over!_" His arms were hanging by his sides but his hands were making fists. She noticed.

"It was! I gave him the shove, right after you started coming round again. But, well… you and that gang of yours, your supposed to rob from the rich and give to the poor, right? I tried waiting for my part of that, something besides old tat, more like the money and the other things you used to bring round right regular, when you worked for Gisbourne. Or maybe not even as much as that, but enough to make me feel like I was looked after, like somebody was taking care of me. And when it didn't come…." Another shrug. Because, what's a girl supposed to do?

"So that's all I was to you? All those nights in the castle, and all those times we sat up talking by your fire, and all that flattery and compliments, you only thought of me as your meal ticket?"

"Oh, no, love! No!" She really did sound believable. She approached him and ran her hands up his chest again, resting them on his shoulders, and looked him anxiously in the eye. "You were always more to me than that! Nobody's ever made me forget my troubles like you do." She stroked his hair. "Haven't we had some good times, Allan? Haven't we had some fun?" He was wavering, they both could tell. She pressed her advantage. "I don't know why we can't keep on having good times. Gilbert doesn't need to know anything. To tell you the truth, I don't like him that much, not like I like you. He's a fat old bore." She gave him a peck behind his ear. "And you are much better at some things than he is. Think of how we could play him," Constance said as she leaned into Allan.

It was tempting. It wasn't like he hadn't done this kind of thing before—milking a man for all that he was worth while sleeping with his woman. Pulling one over on the castle was always good for a laugh, even on this low level. And he wouldn't have to give up the comforts of Constance's bed and hearth, which he had found made all the difference in his ability to get through the hardships of the outlaw life. He hands moved to her waist.

And he pushed her away, with a lot of effort but not that much force. "No," he said, "That's not the rules of our game."

Constance was confused and a little outraged. "Rules? What rules? We never laid down any _rules_! So where do you get off being so pissy about me having another man?"

"It's not…it's not the fact of him. It's that you lied to me about him."

"Oh, you're a fine one to be going on about lying! You wouldn't know the truth if it bit you on the nose! All those stories about the Saracens in the Holy Land and Eleanor's court in France…you don't think I really _believed_ them, did you?"

"You don't get it! Gilbert works for the Sheriff! If I had known about him from the start, maybe we could have worked something out. Or I could have buggered off. Instead, after hearing all my worries and listening to me go on about how hard it was to get the guys to trust me again, you took Gilbert back! And you _knew_ how that'd have to look to Robin! You _knew_! And you didn't care. You didn't care that it made me look like a fool, you didn't care what it might cost me, you didn't even care that it might get me _killed_ if they thought I was in the pay of the Sheriff again, so long as you got your money in the daytime and your fun in the night!"

He stepped back. His hurt and anger were building up again and he thought it was safer for her and him both to put some distance between them. Constance didn't try to get closer. The expression on her face showed that she knew she had blown it.

"Look, I know I'm not some fine lover like the ones the troubadours sing about or anything. But I gave you all you wanted once. I've always treated you real good. And I thought I had earned a little more respect from you because of that, for old time's sake if nothing else, even if I'm not rolling in it anymore.

I guess I was wrong," he said, his voice cracking.

**xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx**

"It's over. I ended it."

Allan said that to Robin as he strode into camp. And he kept on striding. He had walked to Brockton instead of riding because it was the quickest way out of camp; now he was glad he had done so because the return trip gave him time to cool down a bit. But only a bit. Not enough to slow him down. He didn't miss a beat as he went straight to the bunk house. Robin simply nodded, but Much was hard on his heels.

"Oh, my God! He killed her! I _knew_ it! I _knew_ he would!"

Allan stepped back out, purse in one hand and sword in the other, and squeezed his eyes shut. "I didn't kill her, Much!" _I didn't even hit her_, Allan thought. To tell the truth, he was kind of proud of his self-restraint.

He kept moving, now towards the horses. He quickly brushed his horse's back, making her nicker. "Yeah, at least _you_ love me, don't you, girl?" he murmured in her ear. His saddle was off its shelf and on her back in an instant.

And Much was right there. "Well! Well. That's good. That's good. I mean, a wench like that, that's not much more than a common strumpet, she's not worth…."

Allan finished cinching the girth and stood up to face Much. "Much! Not. Another. Word." Allan he had picked up his sword again so he could buckle it on and found it made a good prop for emphasizing his point.

Much gulped and said no more.

Allan swung himself up on the mare and headed out. "And now, if it meets with the permission of our good master…" He gave Robin a sweeping, mocking bow from the saddle. "….I'm going to go get drunk." Once again, Robin just nodded, and Allan went galloping—crashing—through the trees.


	3. Chapter 3

Title: The Man with the Fine Bay Mare – Part 3 of 3

Author: dcwash

Characters: The Whole Gang, minus Djaq and plus an original character

Disclaimer: All characters (except original ones) belong to BBC/Tiger Aspect

Rating: I'm working on the assumption that a bunch of grown men, former soldiers and thieves living as outlaws in the forest, don't limit themselves to pre-watershed language. And there are some references to sex that the itty-bitty's probably won't get. But again, nothing you can't hear on mainstream TV channels in the hours designated for teens and adults. I don't know how that translates to the lettering and numbering system(s).

Spoilers: The vaguest of vague spoilers for S2/E12-13 and for S1/E9.

Length: 4153 of 11070

Summary: Hoo, boy.

If you've been reading the "Dear Carter" series, this explains why "Allan [was] _white_ of face, Much _red_ of face, and Will looking as if he wished he had stayed in Acre" when Marian dropped by the camp in the last installment. I started writing the answer to that question and it turned into a magnum opus far beyond what any mortal should be asked to read in one sitting. So I've broken it up into three parts that'll I'll be posting right after each other. "Mistress" kind of acts as a prequel, setting the stage for what comes in this story. That said, I think "Dear Carter," "Mistress," and "The Man with the Fine Bay Mare" all work well independently and don't have to be read together or in any particular order.

Oh, the plot summary! Suffice it to say there's dissention in the camp, a woman is at the root of it all, and a heart gets broken. By this point it's probably been a couple of years since Marian got stabbed…and lived! Will's back in Sherwood with the others but Djaq stayed behind. (For now? Hmmm…..)

**xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx**

Nightfall again, and again the men were getting ready for bed.

"Robin," Will hissed.

"Hmm?"

"It's dark, and Allan's not back yet."

"No, he's not."

"Maybe I'd better go look for him?"

Robin didn't have the heart to tell Will that he didn't think Allan was coming back—taking his purse if he intended to spend a few hours at a tavern was one thing; taking his sword, his only possession besides his saddle, was another—but he didn't want to send Will out on a fool's errand, either.

It was too dark for Will to tell what Robin was thinking. He assumed whatever it was, it had to do with Allan's transgressions.

"Robin, Allan's been trying so hard to…." The most succinct ending to that sentence was "to be good," but Will realized how much that sounded like something from catechism class and was brought up short. "He's really been trying," he finished, somewhat lamely.

"I know." Robin sighed. "Do you have any idea where he might have gone?"

"I think so."

"Then give it a shot. But keep an eye out for trouble. I don't want to lose you, too. And Will…."

"Yeah?"

"Much was wrong about Allan keeping us _all_ in the dark about Constance, wasn't he?"

"Um, yeah."

"Did you ever meet her? What's she like?"

"I can't say," Will said with a grimace. "She's not really my type."

**xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx**

Will didn't really know where Allan had gone, but he did know that if Brockton were a mile of gentle road to the east and the gates of hell blocked the road to the west, Allan would still point his horse's nose westerly, given all that had happened that day.

Hell wasn't to the west of the camp, but Nottingham was, and that was close enough. The gang had made a point of avoiding Nottingham whenever they could ever since they got back to Sherwood—they were too well-known and the Sheriff had too many forces there at hand for it to be worth the risk, especially since there was plenty of work to keep them busy well outside of the city walls. That went double for Allan. Gisbourne was still so bitter about the loss of his best boy that he had put his own price on Allan's head, on top of the bounty the Sheriff had issued for the whole gang. Will checked at a couple of taverns along the way and was told, yes, that man of Robin's—not big John Little or Much the miller's son, but the other one, the one with the pointy nose who talks like he comes from down south—had had a couple of drinks until one of the locals tried to chat him up, upon which he left again. In both cases, the landlords pointed Will towards Nottingham.

"Now what?" Will thought as he passed through Nottingham's gates. It occurred to him that he didn't know what kind of a drunk Allan was. Will had seen Allan tipsy, or a little more cheerful than he would be fully sober, but never flat-out, down-and-dirty, falling-off-his-chair _drunk_, and he fully expected that to be the state Allan was in, judging from what he expected of Will when Will returned from the Holy Land without Djaq. It would help if he knew whether Allan was more likely to look for escape in cheerful, noisy company or to wallow in his own dark thoughts. Will found himself facing the Trip Inn. _No_, he thought. Surely not. Surely not even Allan is that self-destructive. The Trip was Allan's old assignation place for meetings with Gisbourne, in the days after he had started passing on news of the gang's activities but before he was caught. On the other hand, if he wanted to wallow in memories, the Trip had plenty of them.

It wasn't until he hit his fifth random tavern that Will found a clue. He had never thought how hard it would be to describe another person to a stranger, especially when he couldn't use Allan's name and had to be careful not to link Allan or himself back to Robin. What was he supposed to say he was looking for, besides a southerner with a pointy nose, apparently, who was trying to drown his heartbreak? One part or another of that description probably fit most of the men in most of the taverns in the country.

"A southerner, huh?" At least this landlord in this pleasant but otherwise non-descript local looked like he was making an effort to remember. "Well, we get a lot of travelers through here, from all parts. Ellen, does that ring a bell with you?" he asked his wife. Will saw them exchange that telepathic look long-married couples have, trying to urge information out of each other's brains.

"Ah! That one! The one who got in that fight with John!" she said.

"Yes yes yes! _That_ one!"

"Wait. A fight? What happened?" Will asked.

"Well, it might be a bit of an exaggeration to call it a _fight_, really. John's a regular, him and his girl. John's…"

"Not to put to fine a point on hit, sir, John's a pimp."

"That's right. Not that we allow them to do any business in here!"

"Oh, no! We're a respectable place!"

"But sometimes they come round for just a meal and a pint, you know. And as long as they don't cause no trouble, we treat 'em just the same as everybody else. Times like these, we can't afford to be too particular, as I'm sure you know."

"Well, this evening, there was this stranger, what sounds like your man. And he was in a foul mood, all snappish, so I was keeping an eye on him, just in case, you know…."

"And John and Celia come in. Well that stranger sizes things up pretty quick, and he lights into Celia, running her down, going on about how faithless women are, and how you can't trust any of 'em, except for the whores because at least they ask for their money upfront but they're still not any better than the rest of 'em…

"…well, John, he took offense….

"….as you might imagine. I was starting to take offense myself. I didn't want my wife to have to listen to that!"

"…but you know, Henry, when I think about it, he really wasn't that bad. I mean, his language wasn't really that coarse, you know? I've heard worse in this line of work, I'm sure. It's sweet of you to think of me, though."

"But, John!" Will wanted to steer back to the matter at hand. "He took offense?"

"Yes, and before I had a chance to try to calm the stranger down, John took a pop at him. Knocked him clear off his stool. The stranger, he got up and brushed himself off, acting all dignified, but he looked like he could be a tough one, too, and he had a sword, and I was afraid of where things might be heading, so I chucked him out."

"That's what I mean when I said calling it a 'fight' might be an exaggeration. I mean, one punch is hardly a '_fight_' now, is it? I felt right sorry for the young man, actually. He wasn't that drunk but he was obviously in a state by the time he got here, like he had something preying on his mind he couldn't shake loose."

"I know what you mean, Ellen. I know what you mean. I felt kind of bad giving him the shove instead of John, but John's a regular and I never seen this man before in my life, and I had to think of business."

"Thank you! You've both been very helpful. Now, do you know where he went when he left here?"

Henry and Ellen looked at each other again. "Well…." Ellen gave Henry an almost imperceptible nod. "How about if we step outside and I can point you in the right direction?" Henry said.

Once outside, Henry quietly asked, "What's this all about then, son?" He kept looking out at the street instead of at Will.

Will froze.

"You're one of Hood's men, aren't you?"

Will began inching towards his horse, hoping he could pounce and make a quick getaway.

"'Course, you're not going to come out and say that, are you? Like you're not going to come out and say you're looking for Allan a Dale. Not if you're a friend of his. Which I'm guessing you are. You don't look mean enough to take him on as an enemy."

Will started to relax a bit but still wasn't sure what to say.

"So you don't say you're looking for him and I won't say I saw him and we'll both be the safer for it. I'll just say a couple of hours ago I saw a man on a fine bay mare riding off in the direction of the French borough, where Allan a Dale used to spend his time. And if you find him, you can tell him he still has friends in this town from the old days, and that we're proud of him."

**xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx**

Henry's tip narrowed things down considerably, and made Will feel like he wasn't on a wild goose chase. Knowing that Allan was a mean and angry drunk narrowed things even more. Once he got his bearings, it was easy enough for Will to duck his head into a quiet tavern, have a quick look around, and duck back out, and avoid the noisy taverns entirely.

_This place is quiet, alright_, Will thought as he stepped into one of the last ones on Houndsgate. It wasn't as smoky and dirty as some of the other pits he had been into, but it was almost as dim. This was a place for men who didn't want to be recognized, who were serious about keeping secrets. All of them wore cloaks, mostly with the hoods up. There were no groups of jovial drinking buddies; instead, the tables were populated by single men drinking with a quiet purpose or whispering pairs and trios deep in conspiracy.

Will saw, in a better-lit spot against the far wall, a man sitting alone and idly rolling knucklebones. He couldn't see the man's face, and it was too dim even at that table to tell just what color his cloak was, but the knucklebones—and the sharp tip of a nose sticking out from the hood—made Will think it was worth further investigation.

"Allan?" he said, standing on the other side of the table and trying to look under the hood of the cloak.

Sure enough, it was him. Allan tilted his head back and looked at Will with a sardonic grin. Will noticed a dark red mark on Allan's cheekbone.

"Will! Will, Will, Will, Sweet William! Have a seat." Allan kicked the spare stool out from under his table. Will did as he was told. He noticed an array of small glasses in front of Allan.

"So you drew the short straw, huh?" Allan said.

"What do you mean?"

"Well, now that I've been tried and convicted, somebody's gotta act as es'cutioner. From here it looks like Robin picked you." Allan swept a finger in Will's direction and tottered a bit on his own stool.

"What? No, nothing like that. We were just worried about you. You've been gone for so long, we wanted to make sure you were alright."

"Yeah, right." Allan tested the cups in front of him, trying to see if any dregs were left. "You telling none of you all wanted me out at the least? After that li'l…sep up or set to or wha'ever you wanna call it today? Not even Much?"

"No! Of course not!" Will lied.

Allan looked at Will askance, obviously not buying it. His ironic smile was a bit warmer than the one Constance last saw, but there still wasn't any real merriment behind it. "Since you're here…you gotta try this." He barked something at the barkeep in what sounded to Will to be French, causing heads to turn and the bartender to grimace. "You're in the French borough...and there's this new shit they're making in France…and they get it here…." The man brought over two more of the small glasses. Allan took his and grinned at Will, wolfishly. "C'mon. Ya gotta drink it fast. One, two…" Allan tossed his down his own throat. Will tried to do the same but choked before it all got down. He had seen pictures of demons in hell with flames of fire coming out of their throats; now he thought he knew what they felt like.

"They take wine, and they squeeze it or do sumpin like that to it, and this is what you get. S'called barndee or brandy or sumpin like that." And just as suddenly as the light appeared in his eyes when he saw Will, it left, and Allan sagged in his seat, staring at something inside, not seeing Will at all.

Will got up and headed over to the bar. When he had started on his quest for Allan, Will had assumed he'd find Allan drunk, but he hadn't gotten so far in his thinking as to foresee what he'd do with him once he found him in that state. Now it was obvious that the immediate task at hand was to sober him up, at least a little. Maybe it would help to dilute the alcohol already in Allan's belly. It would certainly make _him_ feel better, at any rate, after that vile brandy. Will exchanged a few words and coins with the landlord and came back with a pitcher and a couple of mugs.

"Here. Drink this."

"What is it?"

"Something that's good for you. Go ahead, drink it down." Allan did.

"Small beer? I ain't had small beer since…." Allan's words trailed off. Will noticed that the man famous for his chatter was losing his vocabulary.

"And another. There you go." Allan didn't care what he drank, so long as he was drinking—forget that there was almost no alcohol in small beer and so it wasn't going to get him any drunker. After chugging the second one, he sipped at a third. And brooded, not even taking any notice of Will.

But before long it looked to Will that Allan was doing better. He didn't waver on his stool so much, for one thing. Will thought it safe to give it a try.

"C'mon, Allan. Let's go. We need to get back before the moon sets."

Allan shook his head. He wasn't going anyplace where he wasn't wanted. "So how'd you find me, anyway?"

Will shrugged. "I figured you'd want to get as far away from us and Brockton as you could get."

"Hell, I could have ridden farther than Nottingham on that horse of mine!"

(At that point the landlord came over with some bread and cheese. "On the house," he whispered to Will. "In case it helps." And he took the pitcher for a refill.)

"I know you could, but here…everybody doesn't know you just as Robin's man here. You're somebody else. Or you're nobody. Whichever you want. In this particular place," Will said said, looking around the inn as the landlord dropped off the fresh beer, "I think you want to be nobody."

Allan eyed Will. "You know, you're a smarter man than I give you credit for, Will Scarlet." He was still obviously drunk, but his speech was clearer. The small beer and the cheese were working, and Will thought it would be better all around if he gave them a little more time to finish the job.

"So…what happened today? When you…didn't kill her? You want to talk about it?"

Both of them chuckled a little. It _was_ a funny way to put it.

"You mean when I didn't hit her, either?" Allan clinked his cup with Will's in self-congratulation. "I got my balls well and truly broken, that's what happened." Allan withdrew into himself and Will was afraid he was losing him again. But this time he kept talking while he stared into the middle distance. "Constance of Brockton let me know in no uncertain terms that I didn't have… that I couldn't…." He drifted again. But he came back, to a point. "That I didn't matter," he whispered, like he was fading away. It was the first time Will noticed how moist Allan's eyes were

Again, he came back, and Will realized that was going to be the pattern and so he had to be patient with it. "So when you were going from tavern to tavern looking for me, did you try the whorehouses? 'Cause I did." Allan shook his head at the memory. "She did such a number on me that I couldn't even take advantage of what Moll Fitzgerald had on offer, and if Allan a Dale can't get it up in a place like that, you know he's in trouble."

Another pause.

"Didn't you suspect anything? Didn't Constance seem to be living awfully high on the hog?"

"I convinced myself she had budgeted the money I used to give her very, very well," Allan said, dryly.

"You must have really loved her," Will mused.

"Hah!" Allan barked. "No, Will, I didn't love her. I wasn't that much of a fool." He took a bite of cheese and chewed it meditatively. "I really _liked_ her, though. And I tried to do right by her. Like, if she had a baby, I thought I'd do like Guy did with that baby we found in the woods…only, without the leaving the baby in the woods part. I mean, I thought I'd take it to monks to raise—not the place Guy talked about, 'cause that'd be more money than I'd ever have, but, you know, somewhere decent. That's not a bad life to give your bastard, is it? At least the little bugger would learn to read and right. That's more than I ever did."

This was beyond Will, and he knew it. Allan seemed to have put in a lot of effort and investment for a man who wasn't in love. To Will, it was simple: You loved a woman, or you didn't. If you loved her, you took the necessary steps to marry her. If you didn't love her, you left her alone. If those steps to marriage didn't work—if, say, the woman took all your hopes and dreams and stomped on them and your shattered heart until they were all ground into pieces as tiny as the sands of the Holy Land from whence she came—you moved on. Simple: yes or no, black or white, you trust her or you don't.

He nodded anyway.

Allan saw through him. "Really. I know what love feel's like, and that was never it. I could…_rest_…for a bit with her. We got on. She laughed at my jokes and listened to my stories. She was good in bed—that'll probably be the making of her. It was just…" Allan was finding a crack in the plaster on the wall inordinately interesting. He started tracing it with his finger. "…she was _mine_, you know? Mine." More tracing. "And I don't…. I don't have…."

Will waited for him to finish but Allan, eyes glistening, thoughts trailing off, was at a loss for words again. All that thought given to a child who was never even conceived, all this pain at the loss of a woman he didn't love—Will was struck for the first time at how acutely lonely Allan must be, not just here and now, but in general. He wanted to say, "You have us!" but he didn't, especially since he knew full well that "us" wasn't enough.

Suddenly, Allan howled, and gesticulated, cupping his hands in front of him. "_And her arse! She had the most perfect arse!_" Heads had turned before; now this really took the cake.

Will stood up. "Okay, that's it. On your feet. We're going."

Allan stayed seated. "Going where?"

"Home. To Sherwood."

Allan snorted derisively. "'Home'? You call that a 'home'? A leaky log shack full of farting men, hiding from everything human…." Will stood patiently. Eventually Allan gave Will a resigned look and stood up himself. Or tried to.

"Whoa!" he said as he wobbled onto his feet. Will reached over to steady him until he was able to grab the edge of the table himself. "That stuff really hits you, doesn't it?" Allan said. Will half carried, half dragged Allan outside. _All I have to do is get him on the horse_, he thought. What he said was, "Allan, do you know a landlord named Henry?"

**xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx**

It took longer to get back to camp than Will had planned. At least the cool air and the activity sobered Allan up a bit more, and at least it made him more cheerful, but "more cheerful" meant he was more interested in singing and joking than in controlling his horse. Will had assumed they couldn't gallop without Allan falling off, given the state he was in. But he didn't figure on a trot jogging Allan's stomach so that he had to stop to be sick several times; Will eventually gave up and slowed them down to a walk. By the time they got back to Sherwood, the moon had set, and they stumbled to camp in the dark, branches hitting them in their faces and atop uneasy mounts.

Of course everybody was in bed by the time they got there. It was cool enough that they had retreated into the hut instead of sleeping under the stars. Will moved in that direction, but Allan balked. "Nah, mate, I don't think that's a good idea." Will looked puzzled, and by this point, exasperated. "Look, everybody's crammed in there, arse to jowl. Even if they've left a spot for me, I'm going to get the bedspins, and then I'm going to have to crawl over everybody if I have to get up in the night, and I'll trip, and I'll wind up making a mess, and everybody'll get pissed off, and it won't be worth it."

"Oh, come on, Allan! It's cold out here!"

"Nope! Nope nope nope. I'll settle down under…" He looked around the camp, inspecting it. "…under that tree right there. Seriously. I don't want to puke all over everybody. Except Much," he called out. "I wouldn't mind puking on Much!"

By the time Will got back with Allan's blanket, he was sound asleep.

**xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx**

He woke up the next morning with the sun in his eyes. Which meant he immediately closed them again. It was too painful to do otherwise.

**xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx**

He woke again a little later with a hand shaking his shoulder. _A male hand_, he realized with some disappointment.

"C'mon, Allan. Wakey wakey."

It was Robin. With a bowl of…something…that didn't look particularly appetizing.

"Here's some porridge. It'll make you feel better to get some food in your stomach."

Allan's stomach seemed to have other ideas.

Allan sat up, propping himself against the tree trunk. Robin's hand stayed on his shoulder.

"You alright? You got quite a shiner there," Robin said. "Seriously, are you going to be alright?" Allan could tell Robin wasn't talking about his hangover. He had a look of sympathy, and concern, and genuine understanding in his eye. _Christ, I've been wanting him to look at me like that for four years now, and I get it for THIS?_ Allan thought. But all he did was nod.

"Yeah. I could do with a shave and a wash, though. Then I'll be fine." Both of them looked at Allan's hands, trembling from the hangover. "Or maybe not a shave, then."

"Good. Because we've got work to do. Much's already shot a deer this morning and I told him you'd help him dress it." Allan groaned. He knew he wouldn't get off Scot-free for yesterday; he guessed dealing with deer guts on the morning after a bender was an appropriate punishment. "Yeah, 'cause I figured giving you an Much a couple of knives and sending you off into the woods together was the best way to handle your problems with each other. You may kill each other but the rest of us won't have to watch." They both laughed a little, but Allan knew there was a method to the madness—put him and Much to work on a project together, away from the rest of the gang, and they'd probably reach some kind of understanding. Or, as Robin said, kill each other.

Allan took the porridge and Robin stood up to leave. But not before Allan asked, "Robin, is everything…." He gave a meaningful glance at the others doing chores. "You know."

Robin understood, and nodded. "Everything's fine. Not that there wasn't some discussion. But we've all been there—well, except for Will, maybe, but give him time. Speaking of whom…Will really made your case. He may have a future as a lawyer if this carpentry thing doesn't work out." Both of them found the idea hilarious.

Robin turned to leave, but he immediately crouched down again. "Allan, I've got to ask…_tuppence ha'penney?_"

It took Allan a second to get what Robin was driving at. Once he did, he gave Robin his patented grin. "Constance has a sweet tooth. That's how much a jar of honey costs." He shrugged. "I'm not so good at managing my money. I came up a little short and…." He shrugged again.

Robin shook his head as he walked off, grinning himself but not so as Allan could see. _My God!_ he thought. _Will's right. He really IS trying!_


End file.
